The electric vehicle (EV) market in India is still developing at rapid scale. With more and more people becoming conscious about the environment and sustainability, EV’s are seen as an ideal replacement of vehicles that make use of fossil fuel. The Indian has a huge potential when it comes to consumption of EV’s, keeping that in mind we can see a lot of companies now shifting their focus to India and a lot of indigenous startups budding.
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One such company is Simple Energy, based in Bengaluru. The company was founded by Suhas Rajkumar who is currently functioning as the CEO of the company. It was established in the year 2018. Suhas comes from an architectural design background and shares a deep passion for automobiles especially motorbikes.
Initial plan that was put forth by Suhas was to create an electric vehicle that will be known for its features such as design, range and performance and also be known as one of the best looking scooters in the world. The scooter must also be able to provide maximum range and should be equipped with smart features. It must also give its customers value for their money.
Kiran Poojari the Chief Technology Officer said, “The team at Simple Energy aims at building the best EV in the country. Our EVs are completely Made in India except for the battery cells. This gives us the highest competitive advantage over other players in the market.”
Every component that has gone into the making of these electric vehicles, except the batteries, is manufactured in house. This includes the surface design, chassis design and battery pack development.
Elaborating on this issue Suhas said that, “We have developed our motors, controllers, battery pack designs, battery management system (BMS), inverters, suspensions, disc, gear ratios, sprockets, dashboard and the touchscreen on it, among other components, from scratch. We design, test and validate them in-house and mass manufacture them through third-party or already existing companies that can.”
He added that, “So, more than 90% of our EV scooter is developed in-house. Our in-house technology development capability gives us the platform to develop better vehicles and churn out as many products as possible. All these components can be used in different applications besides EVs.”
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The company’s EV Mark 2 comes with a 4.8 kWh lithium ion battery and can offer top speed of up to 100 kmph. It can provide acceleration of 0 to 50 kmph in 3.6 seconds and can provide a range of 240 kms in eco mode. It is equipped with a removable battery and has a futuristic design.
The EV also comes with high tech smart features like touch screen, on board navigation and Bluetooth etc along with a mid drive motor. The vehicle also has a fast charge feature which allows the battery to go from 0 to 100% in just 40 minutes.
Suhas said that, “We are developing fast charging technology for scooters as well. We will give our customers a charging kit along with our scooter although can’t comment now whether it would be a fast-charging kit or not. It has a removable battery which you can charge at home. The scooter is compatible with fast and slow charging systems.”